


Tightropes, Belay Lines, and Strings

by nbenrey-real (celestial_archivist)



Series: A Watsonian Perspective [5]
Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Autistic Science Team, Autistic Tommy Coolatta, Character Study, Gen, but i tried to include a lot of the same metaphors tommy tends to use, just straight up projects all my public school trauma onto tommy and gordon, my writing style makes it kind of hard to get individual character voices across
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25158331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestial_archivist/pseuds/nbenrey-real
Summary: Your name is Tommy Coolatta, and you’re not quite sure what to do about this- issue, you’ve noticed, with your friend.You’re used to not being understood, used to others underestimating your intelligence or maturity or ability to understand the world around you.The thing is though- you are good at understanding the world around you, even if the social scripts don’t make sense and expectations change from day to day, the physical rules are easy to catalog.The thing that you’ve begun to understand, watching Gordon and seeing how he interacts with the world outside of traumatic events- was already like this before Black Mesa. You think he might have always been like this.
Relationships: Tommy Coolatta & Gordon Freeman
Series: A Watsonian Perspective [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1806124
Comments: 12
Kudos: 133





	Tightropes, Belay Lines, and Strings

**Author's Note:**

> i had an idea for a tommy character perspective on how gordon differs from him in dealing with stress and hyperfixation brain went bbbbbb and im just like. am i really gonna post a fic that takes place at least 3 unwritten fics in?? 
> 
> of course i am!

Your name is Tommy Coolatta, and you’re not quite sure what to do about this- _issue_ , you’ve noticed, with your friend. Gordon Freeman- you’re still not used to calling him just ‘Gordon’, rather than ‘Mr. Freeman’, all the self-ingrained social rules on what ‘polite’ is rearing their head and insisting that all coworkers are addressed by title.

Though you suppose you’re not really coworkers anymore, now. You think roommates is the title.

You’re not really… the best, at talking- you stutter, you backtrack, sometimes you just lose your words entirely. You have to use scripts and catalogs of social rules to be able to understand what is said when, if you’re talking _right_ , in others eyes. You use idioms and terms of phrase and strange mnemonics that others- even those like you, who flap and rock and infodump for hours- don’t always understand. 

You’re used to not being understood, used to others underestimating your intelligence or maturity or ability to understand the world around you.

The thing is though- you _are_ good at understanding the world around you, even if the social scripts don’t make _sense_ and expectations change from day to day, the physical rules are easy to catalog. You’re good at watching, recording, gathering data- observation told you what rules were necessary to live and what could be thrown out, what was safe and allowed vs what was not, what genes and chemicals to shift to make something new out of what you had at hand.

That’s the problem, actually. You just can’t help but _observe_ the things around you, the people and how they interact. 

Gordon is- he’s like you and the rest of the science team, you think. You’ve seen him wave his hands, rock in place on his heels, get excited and start talking without thinking- and you know what that means for him, given how he talks about school. You _remember_ what public school was like, how loud and bright and grating it was, how mean other kids could be when confronted with something or someone they couldn’t understand, but- Gordon is different than you. 

You’re not quite sure how to phrase it, how to dissect the feelings and raw data floating in your mind like bubbles in soda, into words that’d make sense to another person.

It’s about- it’s something you’ve noticed, in the way Gordon _processes_ those same experiences, those feelings. For you- things _hurt_ , yes- sometimes even _badly_ , so badly it’d make your chest burn to think about. Eventually, though, no matter how bad it burned, the feeling would flow around, over, and through you- away from you, like water through a river- it all eventually goes to sea at some point. 

Gordon, though- with Gordon it’s _different_. At first you could’ve chalked the behaviors you’d been seeing up to Black Mesa itself- any sort of significantly traumatic event like that would have lasting effects, changes in behavior, sure. The thing is though, the thing that you’ve begun to understand, watching him and seeing how he interacts with the world outside of traumatic events? 

Gordon was already like this before then. You think he might have _always_ been like this.

You can see it in the way he talks, the way if someone hits something particularly upsetting that his voice spikes and his shoulders seize, frenzied emotions taking over until he’s working himself into a froth, like shaken soda. The way he gets if you let him hyperfocus on things that worry him, like illness, human cruelty, the people out there like you or him or the rest of the science team that no one’s trying to save.

Things _stick_ to Gordon, in a way they’ve never managed to stick to you. 

Every bad thing that's happened to him, you can see it nipping on his heels like frost in winter- it doesn’t go away like it does for most people, doesn’t flow through him like it does you. Every terrible thing he’s had happen isn’t a past event he has to work through- for him it’s still happening, just around the corner, just under the surface. 

The positives are just a thin, rickety platform over a precarious drop, and Gordon’s been hyper aware of that his whole _life_. 

You think of yourself like you’re on a roller coaster ride- the descent is scary, maybe even _painful_ , the dips make you sick to your stomach- too fast, too heavy, too much to bear. The thing is though, the ascent- its fun, it’s exciting. Even if you know what will come soon after, the highs you reach are amazing- weightless, free, like you’re outside of the world and looking in. It’s what makes the ride worth staying on.

Even at your worst, you’re always still looking forward to the next hill on the ride.

Gordon though- Gordon’s like- like a tightrope walker with no net beneath, maybe. For him there are no highs, no lows- it’s just a balancing act over a precipice of death, always looming under him. Every step forward isn’t a high, just a slim guarantee he won’t die that day- and every stumble just serves to remind him what exactly he’s been walking over this whole time. Buttercups, Radiation, Laryngeal Cancer, a world that hates him and everyone like him- they’re all just one wrong step below, in his eyes.

It frightens you. It makes you sad. You wish you could just do something to _help_.

There's this thing, about this analogy, though, it is- it’s _flawed_. Gordon’s not quite on a tightrope- because you’ve _seen_ him, seen the way he acts under duress. Yes, sometimes it seems like he might just want to drop the balancing pole and let himself fall- something that gives you a spike of anxiety if you think about it too long, to be honest- but usually? 

Usually Gordon is _clawing_ , tooth and nail, for every step forward he can, dragging everyone else behind him- not bothering to check if they wanted him to or not. 

He’ll take them with him either way, anyways.

You saw it in Black Mesa- in spite of _everything_ that went wrong there- he pushed himself past every breaking point he had, for the team, for Joshua, even just for himself. After, too, he kept pushing- come live with me, let Benrey stay with me, rob a bank with me, let's go Netrunning and get you all up to shape. Even when it’d be easier to fall, easier to rest- he pushes, clings, runs ahead. 

You admire it about him, that sheer _tenacity_ . He sees death around every corner and chooses to _snarl_ in it’s face, making it _work_ to pull him off the rope.

You think you might know a better analogy, now. Gordon’s not a tightrope walker, no- he’s like his brother, a rock climber. He’s free climbing, grabbing handholds, slipping down when it’s one too eroded or slippery to hold onto, looking below and knowing if he slips too far too fast it might mean he won’t be able to _stop_ . Climbing rock faces too smooth for most, even the underside of overhangs, because the only way to go is _up_.

More than that, he’s belaying you all- using himself as an anchor to let you reach high places safely- knowing if he starts to slip you’ll do your best to make sure it’s not all the way down, now. 

What Gordon’s been doing, it’s been helping everyone- you know it has, because you’ve _noticed_ the way the world shifts and bends sometimes, like the wave-particles of sunlight on a summer morning. You’ve been able to catch glimpses, of the strings that make up the world, that make the multiverse. You’ve seen your dad pluck at them sometimes, heard the faint music they make- it reminds you of Sweet Voice, of the way Benrey bends it around their painted claws.

You think you might even be able to reach out and pluck them, too, if you can just figure out what tune they make, what color they sing in the voidspace between the boxes.

You look at Gordon, and you see a man who’s been climbing without being able to find the top, or even just a truly safe place to really _rest_ , for once. Who’s been belaying the people he cared for his whole life, _just in case_. You wish he didn’t feel like he has to, that he could just take a rest and let someone else get him up the cliff face for a while. There’s not much you can do.

At least, not yet.

The thing is though- even if you’re not good at talking, you’ve always been good at watching. Observing, recording. Gathering data. Seeing _fast_ \- and lately? Lately you’ve been seeing _strings_ . You’ve been watching your dad and seeing the way he looks at Gordon, the way he watches him like he’s about to do something he and his employers find _interesting_ \- and that’s strange, because not much interests your father, let alone his _employers_. 

You’re good at figuring things out, and sometimes you look at Gordon and imagine what _he’d_ look like in a suit, carrying a briefcase that makes the strings shift and _sing_ around him. You look at your dad, and you know he’s thinking the same- in fact, you think your dad’s employers think the same too, and they’re just waiting to see how things progress- like how they waited to see if you were worth _bothering_ for.

You don’t want Gordon to have to wait _three decades_ for them to decide he’s _worth_ it. You already _know_ he is. 

You think about Gordon, plucking strings, making music, guiding those who remind him of himself, eyes glowing in the dark. You think you’d like the look on him. You begin to think about the strings you could pluck to make what you’re picturing a reality, and you think you want to give Gordon a peak- something he can _reach_ , someday, so he won’t have to climb anymore.

You stretch your fingers out to a string, and _pluck_. The void sings in response, and in the darkness it’s the color of golden poppies. 

You’re reminded, now, of how you felt when you first made Sunkist, letting the world shift under your fingertips until they weren't just _acceptable_ , not just _good_ , but **_perfect_ ** . You remember why you liked science so much, the weightlessness of change you could see and the magic of manipulation of the world around you, what you could do if you just _knew enough_. 

You think to yourself ‘you can work with this’, and the void _shines_ beneath your fingertips, all dying sunset and midnight starlight.


End file.
